SCHOLARSHIPIN

PRACTICE

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Scholarship in Practice: What Is It?Courses in this area teach students how to assess and apply a body of knowledge to a creative, scholarly, or practical purpose. The resulting application should reflect an understanding of how underlying core disciplines can be brought to bear on the subject. It should go beyond the traditional survey and interpretation culminating in, for example, a final paper or activity, often used in courses that are designed to be introductions to a specific topic or area of study. See the learning outcomes document on http://www.ugst.umd.edu for what will be expected from specific courses.

There are a few different categories of courses that are relevant.October 2010

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Scholarship in Practice re-ignites this hundreds of years old academic debate. Which comes first: theory or practice? The staunchest empiricists (e.g. Hume) resorted to "independent ideas" (i.e. general theories) when attempting to rationalize "raw" observations. And the most radical idealists (e.g. Kant) relied on "direct observation" (i.e. raw data) to abstract away their underlying theoretical constructs.

Juan Uriagareka

Old Chestnut: Idealism vs. Empiricism (I.E. Plato vs. Aristotle)...

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Categories of Scholarship in Practice: Type 1Applied Fields: These areas are, by definition, the application oftraditional scholarly disciplines.

Introductory courses in these applied fields and similar areas could be very well-suited to Scholarship in Practice. Several I-Series and Marquee Science and Technology courses are good examples.

Applied Field “Traditional” Discipline

Engineering Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology,…

Business Economics, Social Science, Math,…

Journalism Writing/Communication, Social Science, History,…

Architecture Fine Arts, History, Social Science,…

Public Health Biology, Social Science,…

October 2010

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Examples of Courses From Applied Fields

AREC 200: The Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem: Intersection of Science, Economics and Policy — Taught by Douglas Parker and Douglas Lipton, CORE Requirement: Life Sciences (Non-Lab) [Marquee & I-series]

ENEE 132 Engineering in Modern Medicine — Taught by Wesley Lawson and Romel Gomez, CORE Requirement: Physical Sciences (Non-Lab) [Marquee & I-series]

CMSC 289I Rise of the Machines: Artificial Intelligence Comes of Age — Taught by James A. Reggia, CORE Math or Formal Reasoning (MS) course [I-series]

BMGT 289J Exploring Leadership: Are Hidden Forces at Work? — Taught by James D. Spina, CORE Interdisciplinary and Emerging Issues (IE) course [I-series]

October 2010

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Categories of Scholarship in Practice: Type 2

Areas where a technical skill is paired with the “scholarship”

Music performance: Learn to interpret and perform an artistic work ; requires some technical ability to actually play or sing the notes but much scholarship involved in the interpretation

Language acquisition: Interpret the meaning of the text, poem, etc.; requires facility with the original language

Computer Science: Learn to develop applications; needs an understanding of the basics of programming languages

These courses might be the second of a two-course sequence, for example, where the first course focuses on skills development and the second on scholarly interpretation, application of the skill to a new product, etc.

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Categories of Scholarship in Practice: Type 3More traditional core academic disciplines: distinguish between

“Scholarship” and the application of scholarship to a “real-life” situation. The component of “practice” in these courses will need some further definition (1 credit worth of a 3-credit course, e.g.)

Example from History

HIST 156: History of the United States to 1865 This is History and Social Science, not Scholarship in Practice

HIST 208: Historical Research and Methods SeminarThis is about the practice of carrying out research and writing papers in the scholarly discipline of History, and therefore can be considered “Scholarship in Practice”

October 2010

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Guidelines for Courses

Scholarship in Practice is an area of Distributive Studies. Every student must take two Scholarship in Practice Courses.

Distributive Studies courses should have no prerequisites, with the following exceptions: • Some multi-course sequences• Courses within a major (e.g., Capstone)• Courses that belong to a continuum of a living-learning

program, notation, or minor (ex: Gemstone, next slide)

BUT, at least one Scholarship in Practice course must be outside the major.

October 2010

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Relationship Between Scholarship in Practice and Living-Learning Programs

Example: The GEMSTONE Living-Learning program• GEMS 202: “Team Dynamics and Research Methodology” combined with

GEMS 296: “Team Project Seminar”– Co-requisites, together they make up 3 credits– They teach skills for team research and writing a team thesis– At the end of GEMS 202, students develop a draft of their team thesis

proposal, together with their faculty mentor (GEMS 296)• Completion of a GEMSTONE project

– Total of 10 credits of GEMS Team Project Seminars– Could receive Scholarship in Practice (3 credits worth) upon successful

completion of the programAny student completing GEMSTONE would therefore satisfy all of theirScholarship in PracticeOctober 2010

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Scholarship in Practice and I-Series Courses

Encourage faculty to consider Scholarship in Practice courses at the lower level for their I-Series courses.

We need both categories and this is a way to get funding for Scholarship in Practice.

October 2010

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Relationship Between Scholarship in Practice and Experiential Learning

• Many individualized Experiential Learning experiences could naturally belong in Scholarship in Practice:– A well-structured research project, either on campus or as an internship

at a local national laboratory, for example– Internships

• Supervised work experiences give students a chance to test out skills, abilities and interest in the “real world”.

• Ideally, students get a practical experience in a potential career field while enhancing their academic skills

• Must be taken for at least 3 credits• A Student “Learning Contract” is required in order to demonstrate how this

experience will satisfy the goals of a Scholarship in Practice course.• Students may use only one “Learning Contract” based, individual Experiential

Learning opportunity to satisfy Distributive Studies.October 2010

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Upcoming Dates

• Workshops (led by Doug Roberts and Betsy Beise)Wednesday, October 6Wednesday, November 312:00 1:30 PM, 0100 Marie Mount Hall (Maryland room)‐

• Expressions of Interest for courses are due Oct. 15

http://www.ugst.umd.edu/ScholarshipinPracticeExpressionofInterest.pdf

October 2010